Updates to List Pages

Today (Dec 6) we are announcing an update to the List pages on the IMDb desktop experience. This update is part of the broader site changes announced recently (https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0). After in-depth discussion and examination, we have decided to simplify the features and functionality for lists. We have merged “compact view” and list editing into a single Edit experience. In that one view, you can now modify your text and add, copy, delete and move items. We have also pulled List actions (edit, export, settings) together into a 1-click menu (the 3 vertical dots on the top right of the page). You will now also find two new options in the Refine menu: ‘In Theaters’ and ‘Keywords.’ Tech constraints on the new system prohibit us from continuing to support drag-and-drop from the Edit view; we appreciate your understanding. For more information about Lists, see the IMDb Help Center.

How can I effortlessly move a new entry on a very long list (lets say number 550) to page 3, position 250. Before the change, it was easy as I could just go to page 3 in edit mode, add it there and drag it to the exact position where I want it. But now it always puts new entries to the very end of the list.

An interesting tidbit that emerged somewhere in this thread: the Ratings are in a separate "system" than the lists. That's why adding the personal rating column back into the Export is taking so much longer than the director, release date and url did.

I also wonder why the presentation of the Refine options is so different on Watchlist & Checkin than on custom lists. And why is their Export option down at the bottom of the page instead of under a 3-dot button at top? These notions have nothing to do with back-end infrastructure. Unless they are designed to hide the fact that we have fewer Refine options on WL and C, which could be due to backend data structure.

They changed the way lists are made. I put all of my lists in alphabetical order, but now I can't do that. I can't figure out a way to move list items around and they got rid of viewing the list in alphabetical order. Why would they do that?

Okay, they just added back the ability to view it in alphabetical order. But still, I would like to be able to move list items around effortlessly. Not have to type in a number. One of my lists is 1,000+ entries long and I'm not even done making it. I can't go back and forth to see which number a new entry would be, that takes five years, when it uses to take 4 seconds. At the very least I GUESS I could ask people in the list description to view the list in alphabetical, but I would much rather have it already be in that order thanks to me.

When you view a list in alpha order, they provide numbers. That's new and possibly helpful.

Then again, if you're trying to be old-school with the alphabetizing, and ignore the leading A and The, you will just need to page through your list in Edit mode to find the homes for the new additions.

If we can't have drag and drop back, then I think it would be helpful if hitting <Enter> while in the Position box would trigger a Save Reordered List, rather than having to scroll up to the top where that link is. And this would be just like the Advanced Search, where <Enter> within a free response box triggers the Search to commence.

(I actually alphabetized a 50-entry list before posting this, and found the alpha-order copy I had tiled in a second window was too cumbersome to scroll through, because it doesn't have compact mode!!!)

Jack, I found that frustrating too that we could no longer click and drag, but instead had to type the numbers. More frustrating is now I can't move item around at all. I can add movies to a list, but it automatically goes to the end and can't be rearranged. Are you still able to make such modifications by typing the number?

Yeah, I eventually figured this out on my own, but thanks for the reply. It just seems intuitive to type edit the number in the format they had. I was editing a long list myself and I was in the 900s when the click-and-drag format left, so initially I did the number thing when I didn't have to worry about a comma. It was once I surpassed 1000 that things became problematic.

The drag-and-drop system worked perfectly and very easily but now it's gone because of tech constraints. Why was there ever a need to change the lists in the first place? There was nothing wrong with the way the lists worked before. And "simplifying" the lists created problems where there were none before now. You also forgot to mention about getting rid of the "views" feature on the lists.

I can't believe they drastically changed the lists feature. That was my favorite thing on the site. They are horrible now. The drag and drop feature was so easy to use. Why would I want manually type in numbers. So disappointed with this change.

I really Liked that Feature, but ever since a recent update to the site, that wonderful amazing feature is completely gone. Another Issue is that I can not edit properly anymore, I am no longer able to move a movie or tv show up or down when editing a list. I do not like the new setup for the lists. It's very annoying to use. The old setup was easier to use and more likable to use.

I don't know what the typical use case for the list feature actually is.

All I have is a list designed to be read by other people and where my comments are an integral part (so I never use compact mode or any of that stuff). My list is/was popular by IMDb standards (but I suppose nobody will know that now the view counter has gone!).

Without being able to validate myself with e-popularity on imdb.com, what can I do with my life? Drugs? Is that what you want, IMDb?

Seriously, though, it does seem to me that IMDb gains more than I do out of my use of the site. I've been toying with the idea of self-hosting my list ever since the message board fiasco and I think this is a good time to get off my butt and do it.

Very nice to be able to sort the list in Edit mode, so I can edit the latest add from a Title page without going 5 pages down.

These may be bugs in Edit mode:

1) after selecting some titles, then
click Copy To, Select a List. I cannot find an option to create a new list.

2) the browser tab only says IMDb, not 'list name' - IMDb. Since Edit mode is where I can view the most compact list, I expect to be there a lot, and have multiple tabs open, the list name can be helpful.

3) (this looks deliberate) the big DONE button no longer saves all open boxes. It asks if you want to discard your changes.

4) Although you can add a title from any page, if you aren't on the last page, you don't see the added title. If this is deliberate, then we need a LAST PAGE link in Edit Mode. (I tried sorting by date added, most recent first. Adding a title to that page didn't display the new addition, because it would have to be the new first title.)

(Dan posted while I was composing this. Mine adds a bit info, so I won't remove it.)

Interesting: On the Your Ratings page, the Export function is part of the 3-vertical-dot menu button. And the file includes our ratings and all other columns we got 2 days ago.

But when Exporting a custom list, indeed the following 4 column are missing:DirectorYour RatingRelease DateURL

Another difference: they now capitalize all the column headings.And under title type, it says "movie" instead of
Feature Film "short" instead of
Short Film "video" instead of
Video "tvMovie" instead of
TV MovieI pulled both exports just now, not comparing today with 2 days ago.

When using export function you get the original Title and not the AKA title for your specific country that you have chosen in the main setup. Mening that the title name in listing function and export is not the same. This needs to be fixt as all other things listed by user bderoes above.

I miss the single line compact view so much I decided to just export my data & use/manage my own database from now on. Thus avoiding any future downgrades being forced upon me. That's when I noticed that my ratings (Your Rating) aren't exported in the CSV file!?!?

I'm just hoping this is an oversight by the developers & not a conscious decision by management to try & keep people locked in to this service that's becoming less useful with every update. I'm afraid if I haven't got access to data I've input, that's what it's starting to look like.

The drag-drop was the nicest list feature; an absolute necessity as it saved a lot of time. Also, please fix the problem with the "enter" being not recognised, as my lists look pretty much ruined now. Thank you.

Some of these changes are really poor. The drag-drop is gone and was incredibly handy, views are gone and it's still not possible to move an item from page 3 to page 1 easily within the same list. Also still need a refine function for ratings, the only workaround is to advanced search films you've seen. Ratings could do with more sort options.

How was it easy to move a title from page 3 to page 1 before? Wouldn't you have to go to the title's page 3 location and enter a new location number? You can do that now.

Frankly, the addition of sorting ability WITHIN Edit mode gives more speed for editing items currently at the end of a long list, since you can just reverse the order of the list instead of slogging to the last page, one page at a time.

Well, it seems better to me. On the prior system, when I put in the new location number, sometimes it would go and sometimes not. Today the few I've done have gone correctly.

It also seems to register a change immediately (no lagging). At least that aspect is improved. Just imagine the endless frustration if they left the previous "sometimes the change will register and sometimes not" with drag-and-drop removed.

Endless scrolling in edit mode only so I can load my whole list and then drag and drop from/to anywhere, or a drag and drop in the older compact style edit mode with bare minimum info that isn't likely to freeze.

The numbers are a dreadful means of reordering a list. If you want to reorder more than one item at once, then you need to calculate how the items above will affect its positioning. And that's when the numbers system even registers, which, for me, is practically never.

The only thing I wanted improving in terms of list management was making it easier to move, for example, item 406 to position 1102. And you couldn't even do that correctly. We sacrificed drag and drop in order to gain... what, exactly? My list of over 1300 items still doesn't feel any easier to reorder (and reordering is an essential part of my whole project).

Sure, the new interface looks better. That's almost objectively true. It massively increases the width of the comment space, which is great in my case. There are some good and overdue changes here but it's hard to get excited when we've lost more than we've gained.

I'm probably unique in that the removal of the view counter still bothers me more than anything else. Restore that and I can just about accept the rest. I'm in friendly competition with other people with similar lists and the view counter thing has wrecked all the fun.

After further experimentation, I have to agree that I'm finding the results of long-distance movement more reliable and predictable than before. I still think the loss of drag and drop is an annoyance for short-distance reorganisation - for some people, this might be massive - but moving a few items up and down was never where list management truly sucked.

On the title page of an episode, the + icon still brings up my lists, from which I could add the title.

In a list's edit mode, typing the name of the episode into the add box did not find it.

Pasting the code tt0583484 into the add box and hitting enter brought up the title of the episode, which I could then add.

I always found the search function within Edit mode to be more limited than searching from the top of a title page. This is even more limited than before, but it is still possible to add an episode to a title list.

The list function recently changed, and it is definitely for the worst. The layout is hideous and counterintuitive, and you've made it significantly harder to move change the list order. Furthermore, adding items to the list has been changed in such a way that makes it more inconvenient. I spend a lot of time using the list function on your site, but these new changes make me want to stop using it. I don't know why you did it, but it's really frustrating and if you insist on keeping it the way it is (which you really, really shouldn't), I would at least like to know why.

Yeah, you've finally done it. The advanced title search used to give us the perfect IMDb rating order. But, some time ago, you've change it, and the movies with the same rating number begun to appear in popularity order. At least on the personal lists we still had the perfect IMDb rating order. But now you've change the lists too, and like the advanced title search, now the movies with the same rating number are appearing in popularity order instead of IMDb rating order. And that sucks, cause there is a great difference between a 6.9 movie wich is closer to 7.0 and one which is closer to 6.8. I can't believe that you simply lost the knowledge on how to bring us a perfect IMDb rating order. My lists and my searches will now go all to Letterboxd, a much smaller site, but one that can do the basic: give us movies with a accurate rating order.

Previously, when viewing your ratings or lists you would be able to organize titles by year, name, recently rated, ect., as well as apply filters such as, "Only feature films", but now the system has been stripped back and very minimal for no apparent reason. You are no longer able to view titles in a compact order, which now makes it challenging for me to look through titles because i have so many rated. I would like it to go back to the way it was before the seemingly unnecessary changes.

Thanks for the feedback. You can still sort in this order using advanced name search at http://www.imdb.com/search/name -- see the "Lists" section towards the bottom of the page; other filter and sort options are available too (and results can be bookmarked).

We're probably all just complaining about nothing anyway. Lists will be going the way of the message boards as soon as Amazon/IMDb decides that they don't add enough monetary value to the site. I'm actually still surprised that they made such sweeping changes to the list system when deletion has always seemed more likely.

I back my list up weekly because I genuinely expect it to disappear.

One thing nobody seems to be bringing up is this:

Tech constraints on the new system prohibit us from continuing to support drag-and-drop from the Edit view...

This is just false.﻿ If you wanted to support it, you could. There is no magical technical constraint that suddenly makes the old Javascript sorting system unworkable. I've done everything from developing websites for large pharmaceutical companies to professional x86 assembly programming. I know that this is nonsense.